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December 7, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Battery Pennsylvania

On the morning of December 7, 1941, a fleet of Japanese carriers launched an air strike against the US Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor. The attack decimated the ships and personnel of the fleet and thrust the US into WW II.

The USS Arizona (the second of two Pennsylvania-class battleships – built in 1916) was moored on “Battleship Row.” Just before 8 am, the ship’s air raid alarm was sounded and the crew was ordered to general quarters. During the attack the Arizona was struck by as many as eight aerial bombs.

In addition, one 1,700-lb armor-piercing shell penetrated the deck and detonated in the powder magazine, causing a “cataclysmic” explosion “which destroyed the ship forward” and ignited a fire which burned for two days. It is thought that most of the Arizona crewmen who perished in the attack died instantly during the explosion. (DPAA)

After the attack, the Arizona was left resting on the bottom with the deck just awash. (U of Arizona) Within one week of the attack, divers surveyed the submerged portions of the ship to determine which parts could be salvaged. (DPAA)

One of the divers, Lt Col Lawrence M Guyer of the Hawaiian Seacoast Artillery Command (HSCAC), concluded that, from an artillery viewpoint, Arizona’s aft turrets 3 and 4 (with three guns each) were serviceable and capable of being used on land.

Guyer was credited with establishing numerous seacoast gun batteries on O‘ahu, including four batteries, each armed with two twin-gun 8-inch 55-caliber naval mounts removed from the aircraft carriers Lexington and Saratoga in early 1942.

Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the coastal defenses for the island were considered extremely inadequate. Standard coast artillery then in production would have taken two to three years to procure, and Arizona’s 14-inch guns had much greater hitting power than the 6-inch and 8-inch guns being used on O‘ahu at the time. (John Bennett)

The Navy decided that the Army would receive gun turrets 3 and 4 for use as coastal defense guns. (NPS) In June 1942 the Hawaiian Department Engineer and representatives of the Hawaiian Seacoast Artillery Command examined potential sites on O‘ahu after the War Department gave preliminary endorsement to reusing both 14-inch naval turret batteries.

Two sites were selected: one at Mōkapu (Kāne‘ohe – to cover the eastern portions of O‘ahu) , and the other at Kahe, an area known today as Electric Hill (HEI generating plant) on the western shore of Oahu, up the slopes of the Waianae Mountains – to cover the south and west.

Arizona’s aft guns were removed in May 1942. Because the removal of the turrets began before any consideration was given to their reuse, no consideration was given to their reassembly, and no attempt was made to safeguard the integrity of the turret shells, which had been separated into two major components.

The Navy’s 150-ton heavy-lift floating crane transported Turret 4’s faceplate and slide assembly and the aft catapult to Waipio Point for safekeeping in early March 1942. The smaller turret components were removed from the Arizona, transported to the Pearl City Peninsula, and taken to a nearby yard and warehouse, where they were set aside for the salvage operation in May 1943.

Once ashore the equipment was disassembled completely; then the time-consuming task began – cleaning the small parts of corrosion caused by immersion in seawater for over a year. This included reworking and rewinding electrical motors and completely overhauling the hydraulic systems. (John Bennett)

Batteries Pennsylvania (at Mōkapu) and Arizona (at Kahe) were named on October 21, 1942, by a directive from Brig. Gen. Robert C. Garrett, commanding HSCAC. Garret approved the construction plans for both batteries on May 7, 1943.

The adjutant general of the army gave final approval to both projects on August 13, 1943, based on a Hawaiian Dept. letter of May 11, 1943, ‘Plan for Batteries Arizona and Pennsylvania.’

The most complex project undertaken during World War II at Mōkapu Peninsula was that of the construction of Battery Pennsylvania at Mōkapu Point.

Battery Pennsylvania is a 7-stories deep self-contained unit, gouged out of the side of Ulupa‘u Crater. It contains reinforced concrete rooms for radar, plotting, powder and shell storage and eating and sleeping quarters for approximately 160 troops. The battery was completely air conditioned.

Project engineers had to design a central concrete barbette well that extended 70 feet down in rock. The nucleus of the battery was the barbette (the gun mounting system): 42.5 feet in diameter and 70 feet deep.

To sustain a vertical load of 780 tons and a firing thrust of 2,620 tons, a heavy circular steel foundation ring supported the roller path, with radial webs anchored to the reinforced concrete barbette that ranged from nine to 15 feet thick.

The barbette contained three service levels; the first two levels were accessed from the powder and projectile magazines 70 feet below ground. Ammunition service was by a pair of naval-style shell skips powered by motor-winches that raised the shells from the floor of the magazine to the shell-loading platform in the turret 45 feet above.

The capacity of this room was 105 shells aboard ship; the number was increased to 150 at the batteries. A pair of powder hoists similar to those aboard ship raised the powder bags to the powder handling room, 25 feet above the magazine.

It took nearly four years to build the battery and reassemble the gun. In 1944, Army Ground Forces had scheduled Batteries Arizona and Pennsylvania to be manned by four officers and 157 enlisted men each when completed.

Battery Arizona’s construction was halted on August 1, 1945. Although the turret and guns had been mounted, the battery still lacked some components. It was not probable that it was turned over to the coast artillery and manned. The heavy guns at Battery Arizona were never test fired.

Only Battery Pennsylvania was fully completed; it was completed just before the end of the war in the Pacific. Battery Pennsylvania was test fired on August 10, 1945 (the only firing of its guns). (HABS) Today both sites are abandoned; the guns were removed and cut up for scrap shortly after the war ended. (Lots of information and imagery is from John Bennett.)

December 6, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

250 Years Ago … Hawai‘i at the Time of the American Revolution

On April 19, 1775, the Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen American colonies.

“The shot heard round the world” was fired just as the sun was rising at Lexington. Following this, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, and it was signed by 56-members of the Congress (1776.)

The next eight years (1775-1783,) war was waging on the eastern side of the continent. The main result was an American victory and European recognition of the independence of the United States (the war ended in 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris.)

In Hawai‘i, over the centuries, the islands weren’t unified under single rule. Leadership sometimes covered portions of an island sometimes covered a whole island or groups of islands. Island rulers ascended to power through family successions or warfare.

At the time of the start of the American Revolution, the Hawaiian Islands were divided into four kingdoms: (1) the island of Hawaiʻi under the rule of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, who also had possession of Hāna in east Maui; (2) Maui (except Hāna) Molokai, Lanai and Kahoʻolawe, ruled by Kahekili; (3) Oʻahu, under the rule of Kahahana; and (4) Kauai and Niʻihau, Kamakahelei was ruler.

In 1775, war between Hawaiʻi and Maui Chiefs broke out at Kaupō on the island of Maui; it was the first battle that the rising warrior Kamehameha took part in.

Kalaniʻōpuʻu’s army was routed and retreated, and barely a remnant escaped and returned to Hāna. (Although often defeated, Kalaniʻōpuʻu managed to hold the famous fort in Hāna for more than twenty years.)

Kalaniʻōpuʻu returned to Hawaiʻi, met with Captain Cook on January 26, 1779, and exchanged gifts.

Following Kalaniʻōpuʻu’s death in April 1782, his kingship was inherited by his son Kīwalaʻō; Kamehameha (Kīwalaʻō’s cousin) was given guardianship of the Hawaiian god of war.

In the Islands, about the time of the Treaty of Paris, war broke out between Kīwalaʻō’s forces and chiefs under Kamehameha. Kīwalaʻō was killed.

War in the Islands continued into the 1790s. After solidifying his rule of the Island of Hawai‘i, Kamehameha invaded/conquered Maui, Molokai & O‘ahu.

Then, Kamehameha looked to conquer the last kingdom, Kauai (under the control of Kaumualiʻi).

In 1804 (the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition of lands in the Louisiana Purchase), King Kamehameha moved his capital from Lāhainā, Maui to Honolulu on O‘ahu, and planned an attack on Kauai.

Weather and sickness thwarted the invasions. However, in 1810 (just before war broke out on the continent again (War of 1812)), Kaumuali‘i peacefully joined the rest of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi under the rule of Kamehameha.

Click the following link to a general summary about Hawai‘i at the Time of the American Revolution:

Click to access Hawaii-at-the-Time-of-the-American-Revolution-SAR-RT.pdf

December 5, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawaiians Study Abroad

In 1880, the Legislative Assembly appropriated $15,000 for the “Education of Hawaiian Youths in Foreign Countries, to be expended in the actual education of the youths, and not traveling and sight seeing”. (Session Laws, 1880)

Subsequently, a Board consisting of the Board of Education and the Minister of Foreign Affairs was proposed to “have the management of the education of Hawaiian youths in foreign countries.” (Proceedings, 1880 Legislative Assembly)

This was a program designed and implemented by King Kalākaua.

From 1880 to 1887, 18 young Hawaiians attended schools in six countries where they studied engineering, law, foreign language, medicine, military science, engraving, sculpture and music.
A ‘studies abroad program,’ as it would be called today, was designed to ensure a pool of gifted and highly schooled Hawaiians who would enable the government to fill important positions in the foreign ministry and other governmental branches.

Seventeen promising young men and one young woman were sent on government funds to the four corners of the world: five to Italy, four to the U.S., three to England, three to Scotland, two to Japan and one to China. Several other students went abroad on funds of their own. (Schweizer)

Kalākaua personally selected the participants in his education program and probably planned to groom these young Hawaiians to become future leaders in his monarchy. Several of the youths were descended from Hawaiian aliʻi (nobility.) Several were the offspring of leaders in Kalākaua’s government.

As members of Hawai’i’s leading social families, some of the students had mingled with visiting dignitaries and intellectuals. Most of Kalākaua’s protégé’s had attended Honolulu’s best private schools where they had studied Latin and the Classics.

They were young Hawaiians with a heritage and background to indicate that they would benefit from an education abroad.

Kalākaua selected Robert William Wilcox, Robert Napuʻuako Boyd and James Kanaholo Booth as the first students in his program. They sailed from Hawaiʻi to San Francisco on August 30, 1880.

Once in Italy, Wilcox was enrolled in the Royal Academy of Civil and Military Engineers in Turin, Boyd in the Royal Naval Academy at Leghorn and Booth in the Royal Military Academy in Naples. (Late in 1884, Booth died from cholera in Naples.)

Early in 1887, two more Hawaiian youths traveled to Italy to study, accompanied by Colonel Sam Nowlein, an officer in Kalākaua’s Royal Guards. August Hering wanted to learn sculpture and Maile Nowlein, Colonel Nowlein’s daughter, and the only female participant in the Hawaiian studies abroad program, would study art and music.

In the summer of 1882, Colonel Charles Judd escorted Henry Kapena, Hugo Kawelo, Joseph Kamauʻoha, John Lovell, Mathew Makalua, Abraham Piʻianaiʻa and Thomas Spencer to the US and Great Britain.

Spencer was enrolled in St Matthew’s School in San Mateo, California (“one of the best schools for boys in California, and acknowledged to be the best military-discipline school in the state.” (Thrum, 1885))

In 1885, two more Hawaiians, Prince David Kawananakoa and Thomas P Cummins, also enrolled at St Matthew’s. Both young men had previously attended Punahou School. Kawananakoa later studied at Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester, England.

Piʻianaiʻa and Makalua were enrolled at St Chad’s, a preparatory school in Denstone, England. Kamauʻoha was admitted to King’s College in London (he died there in 1886.)

In November of 1882, Judd entered John Lovell, Hugo Kawelo, and Henry Kapena as apprentices at the Scotland Street Iron Works in Glasgow.

Also in 1882, James Kapaʻa, James Hakuʻole and Isaac Harbottle sailed for the Orient. That year, Hawaiʻi negotiated to bring Japanese to the Islands to work on the sugar plantations.

Hakuʻole and Harbottle, brothers aged 10 and 11 years old respectively, disembarked in Japan; Kapaʻa went to China. The government planned that the Hawaiian youths would be trained in the Asian languages and culture and then use their knowledge to aid in the government’s immigration plans.

Henry Grube Marchant was the last participant to be appointed in Kalākaua’s program; he trained in Boston in the art of engraving. He also sought “to learn the art of photographing upon the wooden block and such other branches of business that would enable him to become a good wood engraver in all branches of his work.”

Then, in 1887, following the ‘Bayonet Constitution’ and the curtailing of Kalākaua’s power, the “Reform Cabinet” cut the expenditures for Kalākaua’s education program and called most of the students home. (lots of information here is from Quigg.

December 4, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaʻawaloa

Kealakekua translates as ‘pathway of the gods’ and is one of the most significant historic and cultural places in Hawaiʻi.

Kealakekua Bay State Historical Park is comprised of portions of the Kealakekua and Kaʻawaloa ahupuaʻa, which surround Kealakekua Bay. From Kaʻawaloa south to Palemano Point, the bay measures about one and one-half miles in length and about one mile in width.

“The Sandy beech forms the West side, behind which is a grove of Coco nut trees & a pond of indifferent water; on the N side of this beach lies a Village, & the Well we waterd at, which is close to the Sea & under the high hill.”

“At the other end of the beach is the Morai, or Oheekeeow (heiau of Hikiau.) A field of Taboo’d ground seperates the Morai from a Village to the s, or rather a continued range of Stragling houses in that direction.” (King; Maly)

Kealakekua was selected by the aliʻi as one of the seven royal centers of Kona in the 1700s, because of its sheltered bay and abundance of natural resources.

Kaʻawaloa, meaning ‘ the distant ʻawa plant’, is a flat, fan-shaped lava peninsula near sea level, which rises gradually to the edge of the 600-ft Pali Kapu O Keoua. These forty acres of land define the northwest side of Kealakekua Bay.

Historically, Kaʻawaloa was the royal burial grounds of Hawaiʻi’s rulers and their families, including Kalaniopuʻu, the ruling chief in power when Captain Cook sailed into Kealakekua Bay.

The British ships, Discovery and Resolution, under the command of Captain James Cook, sailed into Kealakekua Bay on January 17, 1779; Cook was killed at Kaʻawaloa on February 14, 1779.

In their journals, Cook’s crew recorded four “villages” of about 80 houses each along the shoreline around Kealakekua Bay. Settlements lined the bay in the pre-contact period, as do the small residential communities of Nāpōʻopoʻo and Keʻei, today.

“The Towns of the Natives are built along the Sea side. At Cari’ca’coo’ah (Kealakekua) Bay there were three, one (Kealakekua-Nāpoʻopoʻo) on the SE-tern side of the Bay which was very large extending near two miles along the shore, another (Kaʻawaloa) upon the NWtern side which was not so large, and a small Village (Palemano) in the cod or bottom of the Bay.”

“At the back of the villages upon the Brow of the Hill are their plantations of Plantains, Potatoes, Tarrow, Sugar Canes &c, each mans particular property is fenced in with a stone wall; they have a method of making the Sugar Cane grow about the walls so that the stones are not conspicuous at any distance, but the whole has the appearance of fine green fences.” (Clerke; Maly)

“Kaʻawaloa, at the landing-place on the north side of Kealakekua bay, however conveniently accessible to the people of the district, who live much along the shores, was cramped and rocky, being composed almost exclusively of lava.”

“It was hot, dry, and barren, affording neither brook nor well, nor spring of fresh water, nor field, nor garden-spot for plantation, though a few cocoanut trees, so neighborly to the sea, find nourishment there.” (Bingham; Maly)

As the west learned of Hawaiʻi, this area became known as one of the first major shipping and provisioning port for ships involved in exploration, whaling and trans-Pacific trade.

About 40-years after Cook’s visit, the missionaries arrived and established one of the earliest mission stations in Hawai‘i at Kaʻawaloa in 1824.

Access was improved to Kaʻawaloa and Nāpoʻopoʻo with the development of cart roads to transport goods from the bay to upland communities.

By the 1850s, traditional fishing and farming were giving way to ranching and coffee. Cattle were herded down the roads to wharfs at Nāpoʻopoʻo and Kaʻawaloa where they were loaded onto ships in the bay.

Nāpoʻopoʻo Light was established in 1908 at Kaʻawaloa on the north side of Kealakekua Bay (but apparently named for Nāpoʻopoʻo Landing on the south side of the bay.) The 22-foot light tower was built in 1922.

Several families remained at Kaʻawaloa until World War II, but most of the activity had shifted to Nāpoʻopoʻo by that time.

In 1969 the state set aside the entire bay as a marine life conservation district (MLCD.) The MLCD is inshore of a straight line between Kaʻawaloa point and the north end of Nāpōʻopoʻo Beach Park. The cove fronting the Captain Cook Monument is a popular snorkeling area.

On December 12, 1973 the Kaʻawaloa area was designated as the Kealakekua Bay Historical District (a District w/multiple sites) and placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The obelisk monument commemorating Captain Cook was constructed in 1874, near the spot where Cook died. (Contrary to urban legend, the monument site is not owned by the British Government; ownership is in the name of the British Consul General (the individual) – a representative would check in with DLNR, from time to time.)

While at DLNR, we issued a curator agreement to Hale Mua – The Royal Order of King Kamehameha I to help protect the sites under DLNR’s jurisdiction and to help provide public access.

The photo captures the awa ceremony we participated in to commemorate the signing of the Curator Agreement. (It was a moving experience; I was proud and honored to be there. Yes, that is me, all by myself (representing the State,) and the descendent families, members of the Order and others on the other side.)

December 3, 2025 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

The Reef

In the mid-1850s, Honolulu had approximately 10,000-residents. Foreigners made up about 6% of that (excluding visiting sailors.) Laws at the time allowed naturalization of foreigners to become subjects of the King (by about that time, about 440 foreigners exercised that right.)

The majority of houses were made of grass (hale pili,) there were about 875 of them; there were also 345 adobe houses, 49 stone houses, 49 wooden houses and 29 combination (adobe below, wood above.)

The city was regularly laid out with major streets typically crossing at right angles – they were dirt (Fort Street had to wait until 1881 for pavement, the first to be paved.)

Sidewalks were constructed, usually of wood (as early as 1838;) by 1857, the first sidewalk made of brick was laid down on Merchant Street.

At the time, “Broadway” was the main street (we now call it King Street;) it was the widest and longest – about 2-3 miles long from the river (Nuʻuanu River on the west) out to the “plains” (to Mānoa.) What is now known as Queen Street was actually the water’s edge.

To get around people walked, or rode horses or used personal carts/buggies. It wasn’t until 1868, that horse-drawn carts became the first public transit service in the Hawaiian Islands.

Honolulu Harbor was bustling at that time. Over the prior twenty years, the Pacific whaling fleet nearly quadrupled in size and in the record year of 1846; 736-whaling ships arrived in Hawai‘i.

At the time, Honolulu Harbor was not as it is today and many of the visiting ships would anchor two to three miles off-shore – cargo and people were ferried to the land.

To accommodate the growing commerce, from 1856 to 1860, the work of filling in the reef to create an area known as the “Esplanade” (where Aloha Tower is now situated) and building up a water-front and dredging the harbor was underway.

The legislature adopted a resolution directing the minister of the interior to remove Fort Kekuanohu (Fort Honolulu – then serving as a prison) and use the material obtained thereby “in the construction of prisons, and the filling up of the reef.”

However, it could not be removed until a new prison was built; construction for the new prison began in 1855, but not entirely completed until more than two years later. The Fort was then removed in 1857. (Kuykendall)

Prisoners from Molokai (“nearly every man in the village”) who were implicated in a cattle-stealing program; they were tried and sentenced to jail. These, along with other prisoners, cut the coral blocks and constructed the prison. (Cooke)

On the opposite side (ʻEwa) of Nuʻuanu stream was a fishpond, identified as “Kawa” or the “King’s fish pond.” Iwilei at that time was a small, narrow peninsula, less populated than the Honolulu-side of Nuʻuanu stream.

The new prison was on a marshy no-man’s land almost completely cut off from the main island by two immense fishponds. The causeway road (initially called “Prison Road,” later “Iwilei Street”) split Kawa Pond into Kawa and Kūwili fishponds.

Sometimes called the “Oʻahu Prison,” “King’s Prison,” “Kawa Prison” or, simply, “The Reef,” it was a coral block fortress built upon coral fill at the end of a coral built road over the coral reefs and mudflats of Iwilei.

“As one enters the heavy front gates one stands in a long, but narrow, inclosure that forms the front yard of the prison proper. Here a few of the prisoners are sometimes allowed to take their exercise.”

When one enters the prison building the first thing that strikes one is the absolute cleanliness of everything. The cells are all whitewashed and look as though they did not know the meaning of the word dirt, and a meal could be eaten off the floors without offending one.”

“Each cell is mosquito proof, and the doors of most of them open into a big court yard that reminds one of the patio of a Mexican rancho, with its immense banyan tree, the largest in the islands and its sanded floors.”

“Each male prisoner is supplied with a canvas hammock and two blankets. During the day the hammock must be tightly rolled up and hung in its place in a corner of the little cell. The blankets and hammock are washed once a month, and a new coat of whitewash given the cells at the same time. … The prisoners get up about 4 o’clock. They go to bed about 5:30 in the afternoon.”

“There are at present only three women prisoners … The women occupy, during the day, a good-size d room in one end of the building, which is used as their workroom. Here they make all the prisoners’ clothes.”

“The only difference in the cells occupied by the women is that they have a mattress on the floor instead of a hammock to sleep on. They wear blue denim dresses, while the men wear a combination of brown and blue.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 15, 1894)

In 1886, Mark Twain visited the prison and wrote: “… we presently arrived at a massive coral edifice which I took for a fortress at first, but found out directly that it was the government prison.”

“A soldier at the great gate admitted us without further authority than my countenance, and I supposed he thought he was paying me a handsome compliment when he did so; and so did I until I reflected that the place was a penitentiary”. (Twain)

“When I was at Honolulu, I had occasion to visit the reef. That is, the island prison of Oahu, where all classes of offenders, murderers, felons, and misdemeanants are confined at hard labor.”

“While I was there my attention was drawn to thirty-seven Galicians, subjects of Austria, who were confined because they had refused to fulfil their contracts to labor for the Oʻahu plantation. They were dressed in stripes like the other prisoners.”

“They were made to do the same labor in the quarries and on the roads. They were conveyed about the islands in a public vehicle, accompanied by armed guards.” (Dr Levy; Atkinson, 1899)

The Reef was about where the Love’s Bakery was in Iwilei, now the Salvation Army Building, next to what used to be K-Mart. The Prison was later relocated to Kalihi (1916) and renamed O‘ahu Jail; this is now known as O‘ahu Community Correctional Facility.